For he's a brolly good fellow

With the arrival of some seriously autumnal weather (finally - this is my favourite time of year, after all!) in the form of lower temperatures, strong winds and much-refreshing rain I thought I would take the opportunity to do an article about that most important wet weather accessory, the umbrella.  Rather than do a long-winded blog about the history of the brolly, though, I intend over a couple of posts to take a somewhat sideways (but still probably long-winded) look at this humble accoutrement and in particular its use by some great British eccentrics as well as a device for protecting you from more than just cloudbursts.

My own preference for the good old bumbershoot is of course the traditional full-size, crook-handled type so often associated with the archetypal English gent.  Telescopic umbrellas are all very well if you're pushed for space (and ladies in particular may be forgiven for having to carry one around in their handbags, although with the wonderful array of different [parasol] designs you're afforded I struggle to see why you would...) but they are rightly considered somewhat infra dig in the face of the time-honoured gent's brolly.  And don't even get me started on the monstrosity that is the golfing umbrella - talk about going from one extreme to the other.  The number of times I've been forced into the road and nearly had my eye poked out by someone wielding one of those tents-on-a-stick - plus how those cylindrical "handles" are supposed to be comfortable I don't know!

source - Farlows

No, give me a crook-handled job any old time and a bamboo or whangee one at that.  My own example is a a splendid bamboo-handled example from Classic Canes, which can be had for a very reasonable price from the likes of Walkingsticks.co.uk.  I'm actually on my third one of these - the first being left on a bus, the second having withstood a day's worth of heavy rain and strong wind in Rochester before being laid low by a freak gust barely 200 yards from home.  I've been very happy with mine - lightweight but sturdy it feels perfect to hold in the hand, with a wonderfully smooth mechanism.  Of course if money is no object then the nonpareil of umbrellas are generally regarded as coming from either Fox or Briggs - awfully good they may be; I'll leave you to judge whether they're worth the price or not (personally as much as I'd love one I'd hesitate to take a £500 umbrella outside never mind put it up in a rainstorm).  At the other end of the spectrum an honourable mention must go to the second of my full-size brollies, a solid wood-handled number I got from budget supermarket Aldi a few years ago for the bargaineous sum of £9.  Even sturdier than the bamboo one (I have no qualms about putting my full weight on it) it is very much a proper walking umbrella in the mould of solid-shaft types many times the price - I can even forgive it its automated mechanism.  Alas it was one of their Special Buys (from 4 years ago to boot) so is no longer available but who knows, it may return again one day so keep your eyes peeled.


via GIPHY

Someone else we associate with the bamboo-handled umbrella is of course everyone's favourite fictional (alas!) English gentleman spy - John Steed of The Avengers (no, not the Marvel lot - although he could certainly add to the team!).  Every inch the dapper chap with his glorious [three-piece] suits and bowler hat, his ensemble is always topped off with his trusty whangee umbrella.  Exceptionally tightly furled (to this day I've never managed to get mine to that level of perfection) and often wonderfully matching the colour of his suits (one presumes the same in the early b&w episodes) at least one of them contains a hidden swordstick (viz. the opening credits, above) should some miscreant attempt to perform any physical violence on our hero - or if Steed just wants a carnation for his buttonhole.  While the idea of a swordstick umbrella may be appealing one in this day and age - and examples can be found online, mainly in America - it should be remembered that in the UK at least they are regarded as a [concealed] offensive weapon and so cannot be bought, sold (unless they're antique, i.e. over 100 years old) or carried in public.  Doing so is punishable by a fine of £5,000 and up to four years in quod, so I wouldn't recommend it.



Of course Steed doesn't always need a hidden blade to overcome any ne-er-do-well - in fact his umbrella on its own is usually more than equal to incapacitating violent ruffians as we see on many occasions throughout the series.  (Serious Avengers fans will I hope forgive me for including a clip from that film - it was the only one I could find and is at least one of the few good bits of the whole movie.  Plus if you still like the idea of a besuited and bowler-hatted Ralph Fiennes wielding a handy brolly then hold that thought for part two of this post...)  This use of an umbrella as an impromptu weapon is very much a based in fact and can actually be traced back to the turn of the last century and a fascinating martial art that emerged in London at that time.

Edward Barton-Wright and
the variety of skills that
make up Bartitsu.
source - Wikipædia

Called "Bartitsu" (a portmanteau of its progenitor's name and jujitsu) it was the creation of railway engineer Edward Barton-Wright, who had been working in Japan in the mid-1890s and who became one of the first Westerners to learn the art of jujitsu.  Already a keen student of self defence, upon his return to London in 1898 he set about combining this mysterious Eastern martial art with the better-known fighting styles of boxing, wrestling, and fencing with a view to teaching these skills to the gentlemen of London who might otherwise be helpless in the face of the many thieves and footpads who prowled the streets of the city at that time.

For a short while, between 1898 and 1902, the Bartitsu craze took off in London with a well-equipped club on Shaftesbury Avenue proving popular and several similar techniques - aimed for use by both men and women - appearing around the same time.  Some of these variations made allowance for the use of an umbrella (or, especially for women, a parasol) in place of a cane, as can be seen in the series of images on the right.  In all respects the idea behind Bartitsu and its imitators was to provide the average man (or woman) on the street with the skills and knowledge to use whatever they had at their disposal to keep themselves safe and repel any surprise mugging, as well as being an efficacious form of exercise.  It was advertised as "the gentlemanly art of self-defence", not because it was in and of itself "gentlemanly" but rather that it was designed for the gentleman who might otherwise find himself at a disadvantage when faced with a gang of street-toughs.

However for various [largely unknown] reasons interest in Bartitsu declined rapidly after about 1903 and it would likely have been entirely forgotten had it not been obliquely referenced in the Sherlock Holmes story The Empty House as "baritsu" (whether deliberately or accidentally mis-spelt is still a subject of discussion among Sherlockians and Bartitsu historians) - the "Japanese system of wrestling" that Holmes uses to overpower Professor Moriarty atop the Reichenbach Falls.  This brief immortalisation in one of fiction's greatest stories and the mystery surrounding its inclusion saved Baritsu from oblivion and since the early 2000s it has enjoyed something of a minor renaissance as one of the earliest examples of mixed martial arts (MMA), with clubs popping up all over the world and a society dedicated to propagating its memory and furthering its practise.  Fans of the Great Detective will recognise its inclusion in both Sherlock Holmes (2009) and its 2011 sequel A Game of Shadows (with both director Guy Ritchie and star Robert Downey Jr. being keen MMA practitioners) - prominent appearances that have rightly delighted Bartitsu aficionados.


More on the subject of umbrella self-defence (umbrellajitsu perhaps?) in film (and two real-life arch-chaps who wielded their brollies in remarkable circumstances) will appear in part two of this article but in the meantime I think I've gone on quite long enough.  For now the rainclouds are gathering here at Partington-Plans Towers so I may take the opportunity to use one of my brollies in anger - or at least practise some Steed-like umbrella jousting.

Philosophy, female flyers, frames, fisticuffs and foulard

The arrival of a long-awaited item and the by-products of some errands run over the past week mean I am finally able to bring you one of my planned posts; a post that, if anything, has ballooned from its original subject to encompass far more (read: possible monster post warning!).

Last Friday I went to my optician, but he said he couldn't see me (BADOOM-TISH!).  No, in actual fact it was time for my biennial eye test and as I half-expected my sight has deteriorated just enough to warrant new lenses.  I rather fancied some new frames too, but alas as the optician made clear with an expansive wave of his arm the place was shelf-upon-shelf of square frames which I don't particularly like as I don't feel they suit the shape of my face.  It was a struggle to find the oval frames I have now, which are in what I think are a pleasant and fairly timeless style, but I do still have a hankering for some really old-fashioned round-framed glasses.  Roope Vintage and Dead Men's Spex are two retailers who specialise in various classic designs and I may yet see what they have to offer.  Anyone had experience of either of these two firms?

After the eye test I did my usual sweep of the charity shops without any luck but did run a great bargain to earth in the local library.  Quite topical to this blog too, as it happens.  If you recall I did a post a month ago about propaganda posters in the Second World War and also took the opportunity to mark the passing of one of the ATA women, Maureen Dunlop de Popp.  Jennie, of It's A Charmed Life, reminded me of the BBC Four documentary about these amazing girls that was broadcast a year or two ago (but sadly is not available on iPlayer - shame on you BBC!  Thank goodness for YouTube) - Spitfire Women.    Well sitting on the sale table in the library was a copy of a book of the same name.  It is not, as far as I know, a tie-in with the TV programme (it being published in 2007) - although it may have influenced the subsequent making of it - but in all other respects covers in great detail the same subject, the women pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary.  I'm thoroughly looking forward to getting stuck in to this tome.  It sits very well with my copy of Spitfire Ace, which was the accompanying book to the Channel 4 documentary from 2004.

The price for this almost as-new (a few of the photograph pages have come away), hardback book that had only been withdrawn twice?  Fifty pence.  I've said it before and will again - happy though I am to have it, it's a crying shame that this type of book is so under-appreciated and sold off so quickly.  The story of these lady pilots needs to be more widely known and I only hope that the library has another copy or something to warrant the giving away of this book.

Yesterday I returned to have my new lenses fitted and did the rounds again (in my now-feeling-ridiculously-large spare pair of old glasses) while I waited.  This time I had much better luck.  Starting off in the library again I was drawn, for some reason, to a Penguin copy of Plato's The Republic.  I've never been one for Ancient Greek philosophy before now, but something compelled me to pick it up and the translation of the dialogue (by noted scholar Desmond Lee) seemed to make it accessible and it passed my test of holding me for the first few pages, so for another 50p it seemed like a no-brainer.



In one of the charity shops I found a CD - The Best of Al Jolson.  Now I already have one Al Jolson CD - Singin' Fool - with a whopping 30 tracks so I was a bit apprehensive at first about getting another disc (you know how it can be - one compilation has songs XYZ, another has ABC, then a third has ABYZ, until you have to be pretty discerning about what's worth getting and what isn't in order to avoid duplication).  But going from memory I decided that of the 25 songs on this second album, fifteen of them weren't on Singin' Fool so another 50p left my wallet.  As it happens when I got it home and listened to it I was delighted to find that the ten songs I already had were all alternative versions and noticeably different.  (This is the one of the great things with early 20th century bands/performers - they frequently cut several versions or "takes", some of which are almost indeterminable and others almost radically different).

Flushed with success I moved on to the next shop, where I was sorely tempted by a sage green two-piece suit.  As ever though, I was undone by the trousers, if you'll pardon the pun ;-) .  The 40S jacket was fine, fitted quite well.  The trousers, which I had to have measured as the suit had no labels (possibly tailored), were a 36" waist and a 29" inside leg.  This, then, typifies my struggle for vintage menswear - my short upper body has no trouble being catered for but my freakishly long legs mean the accompanying trousers are invariably too short.  Men were obviously more evenly proportioned in the past!

I consoled myself with two very fine ties ("Not more ties!", I can hear the cry go up from a certain familial quarter).  Do you know what the official term is for someone who collects ties?  A grabatologist!  How could I resist these beauties - a M&S Collezione that looks like it's never been worn and a Tie Rack modern-does-Seventies-does-Fifties-does-Twenties (almost, I think!) that still has the original price tag in place.  A price tag of £14.99, which confirms its bargain status as I picked up it and its M&S companion (arguably even better than the Tie Rack one, being woven silk rather than simply printed) for £1 apiece!

When I finally returned home what should be on my doormat but the book I ordered almost two weeks ago and which was going to form the basis of this post before all these other goodies came along.  I suppose I'll have to do a separate, more detailed post now as this one has gone on long enough.

In summary, though, as a dyed-in-the-wool Sherlockian I have always been fascinated with Conan Doyle's use of the term "baritsu" to describe the fighting technique Holmes uses to overcome Professor Moriarty.  In the last part of the 20th century, however, it became apparent that Conan Doyle was referring to Bartitsu - an amazing form of 19th century martial art that has remained forgotten for the last one hundred years.  Thanks to a few enthusiasts forming the Bartitsu Society about 10 years ago, and the recent interest generated by the latest more action-oriented Sherlock Holmes films (both Downey Jr. and Guy Ritchie being ardent martial artists, they were keen to include Bartitsu-like moves) Bartitsu is enjoying a quiet renaissance.



Several detailed books have been written on the subject (The Bartitsu Compendium Pts. I & II in particular), but this little - albeit beautifully part-cloth bound - tome provides a simple beginner's guide to the practice using its famous Sherlock Holmes connection (and the current vintage vogue) to give a slightly more mass-market appeal.  It loses nothing by it, though, and has been described by one of the Bartitsu Society's top alumni as "a decent... very nicely-produced series of excerpts".  It also contains some tips from the contemporaneous book "Self Defence from a Bicycle" and is currently available from The Book People for only £1 (plus £1.95 postage) instead of £6.99.

Quite a productive week for me, all told, at the end of which I have a new pair of glasses, some excellent reading material and a soundtrack to go with it, further gentlemanly accoutrements and the means to fight off the local ruffians.  Huzzah!